June 2007 Archives

Wow, serious heatwave hit here this week. Or maybe it's just me. The humidity is killing me. I feel bad for all people who were waiting on line for the iPhone for its highly anticipated launch. Not everyone wants an iPhone, but some people are a little giddy (and like the publicity). Truthfully, if I could withstand the heat and my boss let me, I'd do it for the fame too -- and I'd go to San Fran where the action is though. Ah well, I'll be California bound in two months anyway. :)

eBay Ads Return, Organic Rankings Drop

Earlier this week, the eBay advertisements returned to Google after the little fight between the two started settling. Google AdWords advertisers were enjoying the increased exposure and aren't happy, but maybe there's a concession: organic listings have dropped, or so some are reporting these findings. Is this payback? eBay realized it didn't need Google AdWords, and now Google is realizing it doesn't need eBay ranked so high in the SERPs. Maybe Google is now giving small business advertisers on lower SEO campaign budgets a chance. It's indeed possible, and I know that business owners would welcome it.

Just Crazy When You Think About It

Every day, a quarter of Google searches are seen by the search engine logs that have never been seen before. After thinking about it, I wonder if that includes different permutations and long tail searches. Either way, that's crazy! Then again, it could also be related ot novelty. When American Idol hits season 7, you'll start searching for the new aspiring singers too. Dennis Ray Nestor Jr. comments that it might be related to people using Google as a spellchecker. That could be the case, but I'd think with the number of searches done daily, they'd have exhausted their typo pool by now!

Threadwatch: Going, Going, Gone

Aaron Wall of Threadwatch announced earlier this week that he was closing down the site. A lot of people have been talking about this and nobody is really happy to see it go. In fact, the activity on Threadwatch seems to have remained the same or perhaps has even increased in the past 3 days. However, the right hand navigation is gone and only the stories remain, so Threadwatch looks like it has turned into an informational site that will no longer be updated. Sad. Best of luck, Aaron.

Google Personalized Search Doesn't Have to be Personalized

Google Personalized Search freaks a lot of people out. Others, not so much. Barry wrote a nice post earlier this week allowing you to see how you can opt out of personalized search: log out of Google, append &pws=0 to the end of your search, or utilize this Joost de Valk OpenSearch Plugin. You can do the same thing for Barry's browser of choice: Safari. Philipp Lenssen also has written a good blog post on disabling personalized search.

Microsoft Shapes Up Search and Advertising

Earlier this week, we reported on a BusinessWeek article that highlights some of Microsoft's recent aquisitions in vertical search. It looks like they're going on the mobile route, but they're also focused on health care.

And yesterday, Microsoft rolled out ContentAds to all advertisers. Remember, if you're an advertiser, you need to opt out manually! Don't say we didn't warn you. :)

Google Docs and Maps are Red HOT!

Google Docs launched a new interface earlier this week. It looks really nice. I think the user friendly GUI should attract more users. What do you say?

Also, this is something I've wanted for quite a long time. I'm totally dependent the path Google Maps plots out for me for driving directions. But what happens if there's a road closure when it rains? I've always wanted to know how to get home when there's an unanticipated detour. Following the flow of traffic all the time isn't always ideal. Sometimes I find myself in dark alleys and it can be rather frightening. So now that Google has launched drag and drop driving directions, I can find my way home again... I hope. (Does Google plot dark alleys on its map?!)

Hate Your Competitors? Trash Them!

Rankings are everything to some. They really can make or break a company. That's why there are companies that can ensure you stay on top while your competitors get ranked lower. Does it sound too good to be true? Sign up today and find out! (P.S. This is not an endorsement at all. Please take everything I say with a grain of salt.)

And Network Solutions is banking on the top ranking idea and is looking for you to get guaranteed rankings for your keywords without doing anything malicious. If Barry is going to try it, why can't you?

Get MySpaceTV Today!

MySpaceTV officially launched yesterday, and we compared it to YouTube. All in all, it's pretty similar. There are some differences like the ranking system and the comments. Many people believe that there's potential for this service, but most are of the opinion that YouTube will still stay #1.

Condo for Sale in Monsey, NY

Barry is leaving us. He's moving next door to Danny in Search Engine Land, which is located somewhere in the United Kingdom. His condo is for sale in Monsey. If you buy the apartment, you also automatically buy the job vacancy that Barry has left behind. Please (only people I like) move in and jump on this excellent opportunity.

Okay, I'm totally kidding. Barry is staying with us but he would like to move to bigger digs in the New York area. I am jealous. So, if you know anyone looking for an apartment in Monsey, contact him please. Tell him I sent you. I get a 6% commission on the sale.

Give It Up

Guess what next week is, my friends? Besides Independence Day in the US, it is the day that our embargo for the Give It Up session at SMX. I know you've been waiting for it!

Matt McGee recently posted on Cre8asite Forums asking how long a 302 redirect should stay in place -- because if it's there for too long, he is afraid that search engines will see the redirect as a permanent 301 redirect.

I almost blogged about this question on Search Engine Roundtable the day he asked that question, but I held off for more commentary, and the impatient Matt decided to bring the question to his blog.

Well, thanks Matt, but I was watching out for you. :)

In any event, moderator eKstreme writes in to say that it should be treated as temporary and if search engines didn't do so, they'd be breaking HTTP protocol.

The HTTP/1.1 specification says nothing about long-duration 302s being treated as permanent. As such, an behavior along these lines is actually breaking the standard. If any of the search engines actually behave like this, it would be the first time I hear of them breaking HTTP protocol. It's very unlikely they're doing this.

Does anyone have any better insight? Let's help Matt out!

And Matt, the following coverage on 301 vs. 302 redirects might also help you out.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

A business owner at WebmasterWorld noticed that he has been getting an increase of sales lately which seems to be predominantly because online auction listings, which were ranked higher in the Google SERPs, are now not as visible. The auction rankings seem to have dropped.

Members speculate that this may have something to do with the recent eBay versus Google advertising campaign gone wrong. Perhaps now this is a Google experiment on relevancy.

Either way, business owners are happy to hear that this is occurring.

That sounds like good news -- much better search results for the end-user, who was often getting expired auction pages. I do see some action like this -- not universal, but still a good tweak.

Those sites have their own marketing plans which shouldn't involve natural search results.

Have any small business owners been noticing any change of rankings (and increased sales/traffic) as a result of this?

[Thanks Ogletree!]

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A Search Engine Watch Forums post by Discovery alerts the community to the official launch of MSN ContentAds, which occurred yesterday. Every advertiser has now been pulled into the service.

As Barry mentioned earlier, you must opt out manually. To do so, Discovery has provided the following steps:

* Click the Campaigns tab.
* To change the settings for specific campaigns, select the check boxes next to those campaigns.
* Click Bulk edit.
* In the Edit settings for multiple campaigns section, from the Campaign settings drop-down list, select Content distribution, and click Apply.

Discovery also provides additional tips on separating your content ad keywords from your keywords for search or for combining them.

Tips for managing MSN ContentAds and discussion can be found at Search Engine Watch Forums.

I prefer to drive from my office to Newark airport a different route then the driving directions on MapQuest, Yahoo Maps & Google Maps suggests. I prefer to stay on the Garden State Parkway, the whole way. In fact, if you hire a service to take you to the airport, they prefer to take you that way.

But I was never able to easily show people how to go that way, until now.

So instead of taking the GSP to I-80E to I-95 etc like this shows, you can now pretty much just stay on the GSP, like my version shows. How does this work?

As the Google Lat Long Blog describes, you simply drag the lines to the roads you would like to take. I took a screen cast of my doing this for the route I mentioned above, here it is:

You can then overlay satellite imagery, traffic, hybrid, etc over your map, if you prefer and finally, give someone the link to your preferred route.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

A WebmasterWorld thread confirms what many people have suspected for a long time. The top advertisement inside a Google AdSense unit is the highest paying ad in that unit.

AdSenseAdvisor has confirmed this:

I can confirm that in the general ad auction, our system will target the highest-paying ads to the ad unit implemented first in your HTML, working down through the auction results to fill in the rest of your ad units in order.

Most people knew this, but it is nice to have official confirmation from a Google representative.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced new features they added to the Panama (Yahoo Search Marketing) advertisers console.

The largest feature is a method of moving or copying keywords from one ad group to another ad group.

On the Ad Group page under your Campaigns tab, you’ll now see “Move” and “Copy” buttons. As the names imply, these let you move your keywords from one ad group to another and copy them as appropriate. Note that you’re still limited to 100 keywords per ad group.

Select a keyword you want to move by clicking the check box next to it. The first time you hit the “Move” button you’ll get a pop up that shows some useful instructional text. You may opt not to view this in future. You’ll then be taken through an easy step-by-step process for moving your keyword.

Now new advertisers can use the keyword selection tool during the online enrollment process. In addition, they made the keyword section tool easier to use and more useful. Plus, Yahoo now helps you write your ads by giving you ad text ideas.

Those are the new features, the forums don't have much feedback on them, as of yet.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

The Inside AdSense Blog announced that Google has launched referrals 2.0, or Pay Per Action, to all AdSense publishers who have the referrals option.

Many people only had referral products for Google products, such as AdSense, AdWords, Google Toolbar, Firefox, Google Pack and so on. Now, you have access to thousands of referral products from any AdWords advertiser who set a campaign up.

This should help improve the lack of impressions with Google PPA that we have noticed since they launched the beta.

I have tons of coverage of how it all works in my past articles. I have been beta testing both ends of the product since they launched, so you can probably learn a lot about it by reviewing the Google Pay Per Action archive (tag).

Remember, referral products, including pay per action, can be advertised and promoted more heavily than standard AdSense ads. So you can ask people to click on your ads. And they also include Google's text link ads, such as this one .

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

It appears that Network Solutions, the domain name registrar, is now in the search engine optimization. They have a page guaranteeing top search engine results or your money back.

Here are the various plans:

• You can pay $1800 and get no guarantee to rank 10 keywords well
• You can pay $2800 to submit 20 keywords of which 5 are guaranteed to be top ten
• You can pay $3800 to submit 30 keywords of which 10 are guaranteed to be top ten
• You can pay $5800 to submit 50 keywords of which 20 are guaranteed to be top ten

There is fine print, of course....

• No flash sites
• No adult keywords
• No hosting service downtime allowed
• No changes can be made to the site
• Top ten rankings in any of the 12 search engines within 10 months from completion date
• And more

If you look at the process they laid out for their top 10 search results plan, you can see a bit more. For example, they recommend their "Link Building Service package and/or an optimized Press Release" with their "Top 10 Search Results package." So right there, we see that link building is not included in the main package. They conduct keyword research and a site analysis, they write the content for you, they submit to search engines (I don't know why), they make links from your current home page to your new "optimized pages," they do reporting and then watch.

I am honestly considering giving it a try, just to see the quality of work. Should be fun. Any ideas for a site topic?

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

When you maintain a blog or a regularly updated website, is there an optimal amount of time you should wait before updating your articles, or should you post them all at once? In a WebmasterWorld thread, a website publisher is wondering if publishing 5 articles at a time once a week is better than publishing one a day.

Ogletree says that either way is fine because there is apparently no evidence to boost one claim over the other.

There is no evidence that adding a lot of content at one time can hurt a site if the content is of high quality.

I'm inclined to agree with ccDan, who says that you should spread them out over time, especially from a reader's perspective.

I think it's better to spread them out than to post a bunch at once. Just for the sake of getting visitors to return to your site.

There's also been good advice dispensed that if you are concerned about search engine rankings, you can check your log files:

I have never had any problems adding lots of content. If you are really concerned about this you can watch your log files and see when gbot gets all the new articles and then post more.

[Hat tip to Ogletree.]

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A number of people are reporting that Google has implemented an AdWords Campaign Optimizer tool. We were first alerted to this on the Search Engine Roundtable Forums, where PPCblogger kindly provided us with some detailed screenshots of the tool in action.

For now, this appears to be available to select UK advertisers, as I was unable to find it in my AdWords campaigns nor was I able to find any Google US help pages on the feature. The Google AdWords Help Center (UK only) says that the goal of the tool is to fine tune your advertising campaign.

The Campaign Optimizer is a free AdWords tool designed to help you fine-tune your advertising campaigns. When you run the Campaign Optimizer, we automatically analyze your budget, keywords, and landing page, and create a customized proposal for your campaign. You can then review the proposed changes and accept the ones you want to apply.

You can reach the Campaign Optimizer via the Optimize Campaign link on your campaign details page. You can also go to the Tools page of the Campaign Management tab and click Campaign Optimizer.

Included within the campaign optimizer are keyword recommendations, advertisement recommendations, and data related to when users last ran the tool.

I'm not sure if this is being rolled out to all of the UK advertisers at once at the moment, but initial reports of the availability of the tool are coming from there.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Update: Jeremy Mayes reports that this is available to US advertisers and points us to Google Help pages explaining what the optimizer does and how often it can be used.

A WebmasterWorld thread points us to a Telegraph.co.uk article that says that MySpace intends to launch a rival to YouTube allowing for video sharing. The new product, dubbed MySpaceTV, allows users who are not members of MySpace to share and watch professional, rather than user-generated, video.

As an example, here's a movie trailer for Behind the Mask:

All viewers have the ability to share the URL and embed the movie into their websites. They can also watch the videos in fullscreen mode.

MySpace subscribers, on the other hand, are allowed to vote (Booyah or No Way), participate in the discussion, save the movie to their favorites, utilize the "Email This" feature, bulletin/blog it, or add the videos to their MySpace profile. To access similar videos, users can subscribe to the video channel and be alerted when new videos are posted.

The services are largely similar, with some notable differences.

Both have the same pop dialog box that informs you that you have to log in to perform an operation:

This is how it looks on YouTube:

And MySpace's popup isn't much different:

Once you opt in for a subscription, it is verified. The notable difference here is that YouTube does not show how many users are subscribed to a certain channel, whereas MySpace does:

YouTube:

MySpace:

You can view your subscriptions and browse through them in a similar fashion on both services:

YouTube:

MySpace:

Rating is a little different as well. YouTube's rating system is out of 5 stars. MySpace's rating system is most like Digg -- you can either thumbs up the video or thumbs it down.

YouTube:

MySpace:

The other notable difference is the display of comments. YouTube does not feature user avatars in the comments system, whereas MySpace does. MySpace is already seeing spam posts, but I don't see a way to report them as Spam. YouTube has a Spam link on the page.

YouTube:

MySpace:

Forum members are largely excited and think this is a promising move:

...its nice to see a site become the full package.

Myspace could capture a lot of eyes from youtube if they cater to the music video providers. The video encoding quality is much better on myspace than youtube and the audio is in stereo.

Indeed, the quality of MySpace videos is better than YouTube's. I think that if they continue to focus on professional content, there is a lot of promise for MySpace.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a member saying he has been beta testing the Microsoft alternative to Google's AdSense program, named ContentAds.

He gave the new contextual ad program, from a publisher's perspective, a great review.

To be honest is was actually pretty sweet. I am not going to talk about any specifics until is goes open beta but I feel it is a huge improvement in certain aspects. I am just waiting until I can take it for a spin on some of my websites to really get a feel for it. I wish MS would just give me a job so I can help them step it up some more. For any platform for content publishers you really need to focus on the filtering and reports. Those are the two area I use the most so the most attention should be paid attention to them. A close third of course is the ad creation process. Watch out for MS, they are not going down without a fight.

But as far as I know, ContentAds is only open to very large and trusted publishers and there is no program for smaller publishers. Back in February 2006, I reported that MSN to Release Contextual Ad Program, ContentAds in 2006. That did happen in October 2006 with Microsoft Begins Testing Content Ads Beta, but it was only open to large publishers and to a limited set of adCenter advertisers to opt in. Microsoft continually expanded the ContentAds availability for advertisers but never really expanded the publisher side of things.

In fact, there was a lot of controversy over adCenter advertisers being forced into the contextual program without requesting their ads to show up on the content network. Next time adCenter was upfront about this change, and last week they announced it again.

So is this just a rumor? I am not sure. I sent out emails to my Microsoft contacts in this area, so we will see. I will update you if I find out more information.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Microsoft sent me a response that they are currently still only running ContentAds on their own network. They do not have a release date for a public release of ContentAds just yet.

Last month, Yahoo added PayPal as a payment option for the Yahoo Publisher Network publishers.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports publishers now received the money they earned with Yahoo in their PayPal accounts. The payments were first noticed yesterday, so if you are a publisher and selected the PayPal option, check to see if you received your money.

One member was surprised to see that PayPal did not take a percentage of the payment, like they normally do.

Awesome, just got my payment from paypal! Better yet, paypal didn't take anything out of it! It was the full amount! Very cool! I like the paypal payment now! Very very cool!

The YPN payment page clearly says, "you will not be charged a transaction fee for money deposited to your PayPal account from the Yahoo! Publisher Network program."

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google announced the Google Gadgets Venture, a program where developers can earn $5,000 or $100,000 grants for developing Google Gadgets.

The $5,000 payout are for developers whose gadgets receive at least 250,000 weekly page views and apply for the program. To apply, you need to submit a one-page proposal detailing how you’d use the grant to improve your gadget, and email it to gadgetventures@google.com.

The $100,000 seed investment is the step above, where developers would like to build a business around the Google gadgets platform. The first requirement is that you be part of the $5,000 grant project, after that - you need to convince Google you are worth the $100,000 investment.

There is a huge Google Ventures FAQ with more details.

Danny Sullivan has a quote, "The payoff for us is in more pageviews and users. By getting more users, we get more searches," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience.

We have a simple Google Gadget with currently only 1,226 users and 32,437 pageviews, so we need some help to reach the $5,000 grant. Go to this page and click on the "Add it Now" button to help our cause, of course, please tell your friends.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and Search Engine Watch Forums.

The world is still spinning, and people are still digging. There have been happy reports on Digg and sad reports on Digg. Little known facts are now more widespread, and rumors are circulating. Such is life.

A few weeks ago, the new version of Google Analytics left beta . With this came some new features, especially the highly desired hourly reporting. I'm glad about that.

SEO.com is rumored to have sold for $5 million which is a pretty substantial amount of money. Personally, while the three-letter domain is helpful, I know where the best SEO sites are already, so I don't know if it will do much for me. The cost, however, is not surprising, though it really is a rumor at this point as indicated by the update by Mike Mann himself in the comments of that blog announcement.

With Google Docs and Spreadsheets getting better and better each day, you should be aware that there are some lesser known features within Google Docs and spreadsheet. Here are 5 things you may not know: there's live lookup via Google Finance, you can perform Google searches within a spreadsheet, there are color-coded live comments, Google Docs supports revisioning, and documents are backed up in multiple places at once to avoid possible loss of data.

Dave Naylor reported that YouTube is giving FTP information away . This was discovered after we realized that Google Video is exposing usernames and passwords and is doing so on an unsecure (HTTP) protocol. Pretty scary stuff for those concerned about privacy.

Business owners, rejoice! You can now verify your business on Google Maps . Life for you has just gotten much easier.

Just a few days ago, we heard that Google has purchased GrandCentral , a phone service that allows people with multiple phone lines to combine them into one line.

Earlier this week, Aaron Wall announced that Threadwatch is closing . There's been an overwhelming response to the closure, and many people hope Aaron will reconsider. He hasn't responded to them yet. Best of luck, Aaron.

In May, we reported that Bill Gates is interested in focusing and bettering their search engine. A WebmasterWorld thread highlights an article in BusinessWeek that emphasizes Microsoft's resolve to focus its energy on acquiring companies that specialize in vertical search.

The article mentions Microsoft's recent acquisitions:

• February 2007: MotionBridge - search for mobile phones
• February 2007: Medostry - health care information database
• March 2007: TellMe Networks - voice recognition for mobile search

The acquisitions—along with Microsoft's efforts to build its own niche search engines to find images, classified ads, and other content—are aimed at finding a chink in Google's seemingly impenetrable armor. "There's a lot of opportunity in domain-specific areas," said Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie at a February investment conference highlighting the Medstory purchase. "That search technology is first being woven into MSN Health & Fitness, and ultimately it will be woven into the mainline search."

It is true that Google is the web search giant, but there's potential to break that into verticals, just as there is potential to create social sites that appeal to a different type of audience.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld member is reporting that she has purchased a domain from a third-party domain provider and has built a website upon the domain that seems to be pretty Kosher. Her site, however, is not being indexed.

What she does know is that the Internet Wayback Machine indicates that the domain was spammy prior to her ownership of the domain. She, therefore, needs to submit a reinclusion request.

How do you do a reinclusion request? Go to Google Webmaster Central and click on Webmaster Tools. You will then see a list of sites you maintain and there is an option to "Submit a reconsideration request." This will only work if your site is verified.

On the next screen, you are instructed to only utilize the reconsideration request if your site had previously violated the guidelines (but was subsequently cleaned up) or if you recently acquired a domain which may have previously violated these guidelines. This appears to be the case for the WebmasterWorld member.

You can then select your verified site from the drop down and fill out information regarding why Google should reconsider it and you should be seeing a change within the next few weeks.

Google specifically has an option for submitting "reconsideration requests" for sites that you "recently acquired which you suspect may have previously violated" Google's webmaster guidelines.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We covered Google's Click to Call feature which adds an image of a phone next to an AdWords ad and gets users in touch with advertisers on Google's dime. In a Google Groups thread, a new advertiser is eager to sign up.

Unfortunately, however, she is unable to.

AdWordsPro writes in to say that Google is not accepting any new advertisers for the time being.

I am sorry to say that the click-to-call program is not accepting new advertisers at this point - and I am not yet aware of when this might change.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

A Google Groups thread announces a new interface for Google Docs which happens to be miles better than the older interface. The Google Docs and Spreadsheets blog also covers the launch and redesign.

What has changed?

• There's a great new appearance.
• There are now folders for easy organization.
• The search function has improved.
• The interface now lets you view documents based on chronology, so you can see documents edited "today," "yesterday," "earlier this month," or "earlier this year."
• You can also sort by collaborator in shared documents.

Here's a screenshot of the new look of Google Docs:

This interface is much improved over the old one. Great job, guys.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

In mid April, Google released a new way to remove content from Google. Since then, people have been using it but there has been a lot of confusion on how it works and doesn't work.

A Google Group thread has dozens of posts with questions on why pages they remove, still appear. Or why it may take so long to remove a page.

Due to that, Susan Moskwa, of Google Webmaster Central, promised clearer instructions on the Google URL removal tool and also provided more details on what you should do to remove content from Google's index.

I'm sorry that you've been frustrated by the URL removal process! Just to clarify, here's what's required in order to get a URL successfully removed:

If you want to remove an individual file (a web page, an image, etc.), you can do any one of the following:
-Make sure that the URL returns an HTTP 404 or 410 status code
-Block the URL using a meta noindex tag
-Block the URL using a robots.txt file

However, if you want to remove an entire directory (or an entire website), you have to block that content using a robots.txt file. Just returning a 404 isn't enough; this is because it's possible for a directory to return a 404 status code, but still serve out files underneath it. Robotting out the entire directory ensures that all of its children are disallowed as well.

Forum discussion at Google Group.

Was Google AdSense a bit too square for you? Well, now you can opt for rounded corners.

The Google AdSense Blog announced two types of rounded corners. The first is "slightly rounded corners" and the second is "very rounded corners."

Here is a screen capture of the new feature in the AdSense publisher console that enables publishers to select the roundness of their ads.

And here is a "very rounded corners" ad, that is live:

So far the feedback in the forums are very positive towards this new addition and element of control. There is only one post with feedback on the impact on earnings, but I won't quote that until we get some more feedback from a larger set of publishers.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has discussion about a service one member was offered.

In short, the service is composed of two offerings:

(1) Damage your competitor's search engine rankings
(2) Protect your own search engine rankings

They use threats in their email marketing message, such as "Pay up or have your forum spammed!" and "Your forum will be spammed in the next few days" and then "Pay up to this url or have your forum heavily spam."

What should you do if you get such an email? Forward it to Google or let me know.

But seriously, all you need to do is "just hit the delete button," as forum administrator, Robert Kerry said.

The big question is, can a competitor hurt your rankings? We discussed this most recently in August 2006 and October 2006. I mentioned that Google has a FAQ that addresses just that.

What can I do if I'm afraid my competitor is harming my ranking in Google?
There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you're concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don't control the content of these pages.

"Almost nothing" are the words used here, so technically, it is possible.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

In late 2004 and early 2005, page hijacks were a huge concern with Google. Back then, sites used a 302 redirect to take over a susceptible page within the search results.

Marcia reports at Search Engine Watch Forums that the hijacks are still an issue.

I found this just this week when doing an inurl: search for one of my domains, and it's the OTHER site that shows up instead of my homepage. A search for that site by name has always brought the site up - but no more, it's nowhere to be found.

One domain causing it to happen has over 50K hijacked pages duplicated and in the index on their domain, and another has many, many thousands and is running Adsense. They're both anonymous proxies.

DaveN concurs that he has been seeing these proxy sites; "I have seen anonproxy sites rotating IP address, and cloaking the real one that google gets..."

There are not many examples showing this in the thread so it is hard to pinpoint for you guys. But there are respected SEOs discussing the issue.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update: WebmasterWorld also has a thread on this topic. The post shares a lot more information, so I will quote most of it.

Over the weekend my index page and now some internal pages were proxy hijacked within Google's results. My well ranked index page dropped from the results and has no title, description or cache. A search for "My Company Name" brings up (now two) listings of the malicious proxy at the top of the results.

The URL of the proxy is formatted as such:
https://www.scumbagproxy.com/cgi-bin/nph-ssl.cgi/000100A/http/www.mysite.com

A quick search in Google for "cgi-bin/nph-ssl.cgi/000100A/" brings up now 55,000+ results when Saturday it was 13,000 and Sunday it was 30,000. The number of sites affected are increasing exponentially and your site could be next.

Take preventative action now by doing the following...

1. Add this to all of your headers:
<base href="http://www.yoursite.com/" />

and if you see an attempted hijack...

2. Block the site via .htaccess:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} yourproblemproxy\.com

3. Block the IP address of the proxy
order allow,deny
deny from 11.22.33.44
allow from all

4. Do your research and file a spam report with Google.
http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html

In what may be a response to Terry Semel's departure from Yahoo, WebmasterWorld moderator martinibuster reports that Wenda Harris Millard, Yahoo's Chief Sales Officer, has left the company. Search Engine Land reports that Millard will be working at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

This is also part of a Yahoo initiative to combine search and display advertising teams under the leadership of David Karnstedt, according to a June 24 press release. Yahoo has written in the press release that Millard is leaving "effective immediately."

However, Millard has told the Wall Street Journal that it appears that they misrepresented her departure.

"I feel badly that Yahoo has had such a tough time lately," said Ms. Millard in an interview. "And I'm sorry they announced the story this way because clearly I resigned and I have a great new job," she added.

According to forum members, Millard is "going to be missed big-time."

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Kara Swisher has interviewed Wenda Harris Millard regarding the recent change in management. [Thanks, Christine Mohan!]

Last week, I wrote about how to see geotargeted Google ads from another location. The solution, for Google, is relatively simple: add location attributes and values to the Google ad preview page. However, this time, a DigitalPoint Forums member asks how you can see geotargeted Yahoo ads from another location.

The solution to this is tougher, since there is no Yahoo ad preview option. The only way I am aware of is to use a USA proxy server to view the ads. I'd love to hear it if other people have additional suggestions.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

According to a Google Groups post, Maps Guide Brian has informed us that users can now write reviews for businesses in eleven countries. The catch: you need a Google account to do so.

To write a review for a business, just search for it, expand the information window by clicking on the "+" sign, and click on "Write a review" at the top. You can also expand the window by clicking on "more info" in the left panel. Once you submit your review, it'll appear on Google Maps right away.

Barry experimented with this feature and tried it out on our company, as you can see in his Search Engine Land post on June 19th. He walked us through the process of creating a review, and I just checked -- it's still there on June 26:

Cool stuff. I guess the reputation management police might be after the real negative reviews, but positive reviews won't get hit so hard.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Yesterday, users reported that Google Reader was not refreshing feeds and TechCrunch picked up the story. A Google Groups thread has also been monitoring the downtime, eventually with Mihai Parparita, a Google Reader Engineer, informing the community that the problem has been resolved.

Very sorry about this, feeds should be correctly refreshing again. They will catch up on updates over the next few hours.

Google Reader also suffered from an outage on June 12th.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

The SEO community is suffering a big loss. Aaron Wall has announced on Threadwatch that he is closing down the site on Friday for a number of reasons: bad publicity, edgy news, gossip, decentralization, spam, and having other priorities in life.

Aaron is happily in a relationship now, so I really cannot blame him. However, the news has come as a shock to the Threadwatch community, many of whom are asking Aaron to change his mind.

Threadwatch was nearly three years old, having been founded on October 5, 2004 by Nick Wilson who then sold it to Aaron Wall in November of 2005. Over the course of time, Threadwatch has been a centralized part of many SEOs/SEMs to find the latest news and discuss some of the more controversial topics of the industry. It was a hub with some very good information, and I personally am sad to see it go.

I wish Aaron and the other Threadwatch moderators the best.

Threadwatch forum discussion continues at Threadwatch -- until Friday, I suppose.

I have been tracking a Google AdWords bug via a WebmasterWorld thread for several days now. The bug is that AdWords professionals who have linked client accounts within the My Client Center (MCC) are unlinking - so AdWords managers cannot access those accounts easily.

The bug was first reported on June 16th. AdWordsAdvisor confirmed the bug on June 18th. Yesterday, June 25th, the bug seemed to have gotten worse, by spreading to many more AdWords advertisers and professionals.

In addition to the unlinking of client accounts, some AdWords professionals are noticing this message:

Your qualification is at risk.
You are at risk of losing your qualification due to low account spending. To retain your qualification, you must maintain the minimum account spending level.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.